Meet Alexa+

First Impressions after NYC Amazon Announcement

I’m cooking a video from Amazon’s media briefing, which ended about 30 minutes ago here at Spring Studios in NYC. If you see it with a play button, you will know I was able to upload it before moving to another room for demos of the very impressive smartification of the voice assistant formerly known as Alexa.

Her new name is Alexa+.

That simple arithmetic symbol after her name covers an impressive set of new capabilities, which I will cover in detail on the next Kindle Chronicles podcast. I hope to have it uploaded later tonight or tomorrow morning before my flight back to Sanibel.

Alexa+ will cost $19.99 a month if you are not a Prime member. With Prime, it will be free. I didn’t see that one coming. I thought Prime might mean a lower fee, something like $5 or $10 a month extra.

Alexa+ will be rolled out beginning “in the next few months.” NEXT MONTH, said Panos Panay, senior vice president of devices and services. I will try to get a more precise view of what that will mean. If the first customers don’t get Alexa+ until late May, it might take the rest of the year for us all to see it.

We won’t have to buy any new hardware for Alexa+. She will work on existing devices. Maybe not all of them, since Amazon has been churning out Alexa-enabled products for 10 years now.

There’s the video. Time to move on.

Click here for Amazon’s live-blog posts during the presentation.